Victorian sensation : the extraordinary publication, reception, and secret authorship of Vestiges of the natural history of creation / James A. Secord.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Secord, James A.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Chambers, Robert, 1802-1871. Vestiges of the natural history of creation.

Chambers, Robert.

Physical Description:

xix, 624 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2000]

Summary:

"Fiction or philosophy, profound knowledge or shocking heresy? When Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation was published anonymously in 1844, it sparked one of the greatest sensations of the Victorian era. As gripping as a popular novel, Vestiges combined all the current scientific theories in fields ranging from astronomy and geology to psychology and economics. The book was banned, it was damned, it was hailed as the gospel for a new age. This is where our own public controversies about evolution began." "In a pioneering cultural history, James A. Secord uses the story of Vestiges to create a panoramic portrait of life in the early industrial era from the perspective of its readers. We join apprentices in a factory town as they debate the consequences of an evolutionary ancestry. We listen as Prince Albert reads aloud to Queen Victoria from a book that preachers denounced as blasphemy vomited from the mouth of Satan. And we watch as Charles Darwin turns its pages in the flea-ridden British Museum library, fearful for the fate of his own unpublished theory of evolution. Using secret letters, Secord reveals how Vestiges was written and how the anonymity of its author was maintained for forty years. He also takes us behind the scenes to a bustling world of publishers, printers, and booksellers to show how the furor over the book reflected the emerging industrial economy of print." "Written and based on research, Victorian Sensation offers a new approach to literary history, the history of reading, and the history of science. Illustrated and full of fascinating stories, it is the most comprehensive account of the making and reception of a book (other than the Bible) ever attempted."--Jacket.

Contents:

Prologue: Devils or Angels

Romances of Creation

A Great Sensation

Steam Reading

Evolution for the People

Marketing Speculation

Geographies of Reading

Conversations on Creation

Science in the City

Church in Danger

The Holy War

Spiritual Journeys

Sinners and Saints

Self-Development

Anonymity

Futures of Science

The Paradoxes of Gentility

Grub Street Science

Mammon and the New Reformation

Epilogue: Lifting the Veil.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 533-581) and index.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Livezey Fund bookplate.

ISBN:

0226744108

OCLC:

43864195